Welding quad shock question.

[ThatSNninety5]

This is currently my driver side frame to quad shock mounting plate, car had wheel hop like crazy. As you can see the right side drop in is in tact. But the left side on the other hand, broke off the in frame. Im going to just weld the mounting bracket back onto the frame, in terms of prep with it being so close to the fuel tank, what precautions should I take, should I just drop the fuel tank and drain the fuel line? Or could I wrap a fire blanket around the tank, what is the best way to go about this?

 

[badass98svt]

Looks like the bolt fell out

 

[ThatSNninety5]

Looks like the bolt fell out

Yes the right side bolt fell out. I was going to take the left side bolt out and it broke where it threads into the frame. I was going to put a bolt where I can in the right side and then the left side where the bolt broke in the frame I am going to weld it. Hence why I want to know the best precautions I can take that prevent making my car go up in flames

 

[shovel]

why not just drill through the rail and put a washer and nut on the far side?

 

[cobrajeff96]

That's generally not a good idea. From factory, either there is a nut bonded to the frame or there is a solid spacer inside the hollow of the frame rail whenever there are threads on the far side.

If you do a through-bolt without a solid spacer inside the hollow, you risk crimping the frame rail when torque is applied and it doesn't really solve your problem. In the case of a quad shock, probably not a big deal I'll say, but then again it would be putting in essentially a 'structural member' into the frame itself so better safe than sorry.

As for the original question, you're far better off extracting that broken bolt rather than welding to the frame.

If you're hell bent on welding, don't open up the fuel system. Don't drop the tank. Just cover it in a thick, wet blanket. Disconnect both the + and the - of the battery. Sand down the lines where your weld will be until you get bright, shiny metal. And use Acetone (nothing else, not brake cleaner, not alcohol) and a clean white rag until the rag itself is no longer showing up any sort of residue and it's just white.

 

[ThatSNninety5]

That's generally not a good idea. From factory, either there is a nut bonded to the frame or there is a solid spacer inside the hollow of the frame rail whenever there are threads on the far side.

If you do a through-bolt without a solid spacer inside the hollow, you risk crimping the frame rail when torque is applied and it doesn't really solve your problem. In the case of a quad shock, probably not a big deal I'll say, but then again it would be putting in essentially a 'structural member' into the frame itself so better safe than sorry.

As for the original question, you're far better off extracting that broken bolt rather than welding to the frame.

If you're hell bent on welding, don't open up the fuel system. Don't drop the tank. Just cover it in a thick, wet blanket. Disconnect both the + and the - of the battery. Sand down the lines where your weld will be until you get bright, shiny metal. And use Acetone (nothing else, not brake cleaner, not alcohol) and a clean white rag until the rag itself is no longer showing up any sort of residue and it's just white.

I definitely will be extracting the original bolt as well as welding it, id love to just replace the bolt but of course it had to break inside the frame, as far as the mounting plate goes, when I do weld id it should I take the quad shock itself off to relieve any tension on that mounting plate as im welding it and if so what precautions should it take when disconnecting the quadshock itself.

 

[cobrajeff96]

As long as one side of the shock remains disconnected, there will be no tension affecting the positioning of the weld beads.

I'd be more worried about heat propagating through the metal and into the shock, cooking its internal oil.

 

[94IndyPace]

Always the option to remove them and go with an aftermarket control arm.

 

[ThatSNninety5]

As long as one side of the shock remains disconnected, there will be no tension affecting the positioning of the weld beads.

I'd be more worried about heat propagating through the metal and into the shock, cooking its internal oil.

Would you say itd be best to disconnect the quad shock then to prevent cooking the internal oil of it? And is there anything else I should be concerned about when welding besides what has been said?

 

[cobrajeff96]

That's about it.

Of course like Indy said you can get some LCAs and UCAs and then you can forget about even using quad shocks (they're kind of dumb to begin with). I would recommend Maximum Motorsports.

 

[ttocs]

the fumes are 10x more dangerous than the liquid, and no heat shield will prevent them from going up if they do touch a spark. At the very least do it in an area with good airflow and maybe have a fan on right up till you start welding to be sure that there are no fumes hanging around.

 

[ThatSNninety5]

the fumes are 10x more dangerous than the liquid, and no heat shield will prevent them from going up if they do touch a spark. At the very least do it in an area with good airflow and maybe have a fan on right up till you start welding to be sure that there are no fumes hanging around.

The welding is taking place outside in a gravel lot. Buddies at work said i can also use an extra welding jacket and wrap it around the gas tank to prevent ignition as well. Is that true?

 

[shovel]

Given that the plate is most of the height of the rail and fender washers exist and it doesn't exactly need 305 ft-lbs I really don't think there is any cause for concern on just drilling through and putting a nut and fender washer on the back side, or if you really wanted you could drill a bit larger and use a bit of pipe as a sleeve.


But if you're dead set on welding then do the thing you were planning to do before asking.

 

[ttocs]

The welding is taking place outside in a gravel lot. Buddies at work said i can also use an extra welding jacket and wrap it around the gas tank to prevent ignition as well. Is that true?

I say try it, but if you happen to notice your buddies are wanting to film it then no....

 

[cobrajeff96]

TBQH you probably won't notice any difference deleting the quad shocks altogether, whether or not you install aftermarket control arms. Just normal city driving, that is.

Above welding or even just restoring the original function by extracting the broken bolt, I'd actually recommend saving yourself the trouble of all this by just chucking the quad shocks and the brackets in the trash or listing them on ebay (yes, people will actually bid on them!).

Then later when you put aside a bit of money, assuming you actually care about suspension performance of the car, just buy quality aftermarket control arms (the stock control arms are pure fkn trash anyway).